Hot answers tagged software-licensing
11
I'm founder of the company that makes LimeLM, a licensing and online activation product. We have examples showing how to use LimeLM & TurboActivate with Java. Also, if you want to prevent your compiled jar from being decompiled we recommend using ProGuard in tandem with LimeLM. ProGuard is a free and open source obfuscator for Java.
If you have any ...
11
There is no way to measure them against each other on profitability. There are very profitable consulting agencies and very profitable software houses.
Software houses can reach bigger extremes (no software consultancy is ever getting bought for 1 billion dollars). If you want to "swing for the fences" then a software house is your best bet.
If you are ...
9
We already spent years of engineering work and price was the last issue we thought about.
Yikes! Well, we made the same mistake in my first startup, and I hope yours goes better than that did.
You need to figure out what it's worth to your customers, and price it accordingly. And as a marketer once told us in that startup (and we were damn fools not to ...
9
If all work done on the website is owned by your company then unless there is some specific part of the contract he is quoting it sounds like he's out of luck. That said, if you are able to make a backup of any files pertaining to the website, do so ASAP.
You can try threatening him with legal action, in which case:
Get as much evidence ASAP, before you ...
8
It's hard to give a good answer from the vague info you've posted, but I will share one piece of advice when selling anything...
Once you set your price it should be something that you are proud of and can defend easily and without resrorting to crazy examples. If you can clearly demonstrate that your software proves $2500/mo in value, then charge $2000/mo ...
8
It has advantages and disadvantages.
The advantages are:
That you are not side tracked from your business goals by new shiny ways of doing things.
That you have a large amount of the skills a developer doesn't have, (Marketing being one of my main issues).
For me the writing of the code is the easy bit, all the other stuff, like engaging with the market, ...
7
In a consulting business the revenue and costs are typically linear. In a software house the revenue and costs are not linear. In a software house the revenues can be much higher than the costs, or if the products and sales are poor the revenue can be zero.
A common model is a hybrid of the two. Someone starts out consulting and slowly builds a product ...
6
I would do three things:
After the initial cease-desist letters to the legal department of the university for violation of the software license -- let it go. Don't spend any more karmic energy on trying to collect.
With the help of someone at the University right a "Case Study" of how the software is being used and the impact. See if you can get a ...
6
Another question is: where can i find resources that on the web on software licensing (what are the most common modalities, what are the best practices and so on)?
This is a good question unfortunately the resources on the web fall into 2 main categories:
Whitepapers by licensing companies: dull, biased, marketing-speak with scant useful information. ...
6
Juan, there are no set standards in the software industry and there are many different methodologies. Varying from a waterfall development methodology where everything is specified and defined in much detail on the entire projects before developing anything. To, agile development methodologies where you have a high level view of the entire game plan, but ...
6
Alright, so your idea is a programming language which gets transcoded to another programming language -- kind of like CoffeScript to Javascript, Less to CSS, or Google Web Toolkit Java to Javascript.
As you can see by the prior work I mentioned, there is no copyright problem here. I would suggest you have a quick look at this post about types of ...
5
I can sum up my reservations in one word: resistance.
I don't know your market, or your likely competition, but reading your site for 5 minutes I'm not really clear what problems it's solving. You do mention it as open source and downloadable for free and it seems has been so for some time.
If you're adding a layer to something you're giving away for free ...
5
This is not an uncommon request for companies in your position, for precisely the reasons you describe. Still, if you mishandle the escrow paperwork, especially the release conditions, you can effectively hamstring your company. I'd recommend consulting an attorney with experience with escrow agreements.
If you're going to try to do it yourself, then pick ...
5
There is an upper limit on the revenue for consultants that does not exist for houses.
For consultants the maximum revenue per year is limited to:
(number of consultants) x (hours worked per year) x (billing rate)
So lets be wildly optimistic and say in your consulting firm people want to work like crazy and bill out at $1,000 per hour ( a very high rate) ...
4
Royalty-free, exclusive world-wide license means that only license holder can sell the software without sharing revenues with you. If they want to acquire the product from you to develop it further & distribute it to end users, then this is one of the ways to do it as you essentially give up any rights to selling the software anywhere by granting such a ...
4
I ran a software consultancy for about four years and we were decently profitable - in that everyone got paid good salaries, had a good office, etc. etc.
We built quite a few products as well and tried to sell them / SaSS them out - but it was always difficult doing that - either due to lack of any selling skills on our part or a lack of a market in my ...
4
You can sell it. It is a permissive license.
If you sell it and use a binary format to distribute, you better read this:
"Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution."
This means, you should add a ...
3
Max gives you 1000$ for your software. He has the only license to distribute it to his likings then and does not need to pay any more money to you. If Max sells the Software 10.000 times for 100$, he is making 1.000.000$. You will still have the 1000$.
If you see it sells well, you can't take his rights away. You can decide not to develop it further for ...
3
Why don't you try to sell it to your current company before you build it. Tell them that if they like the idea, you'll leave to work on it and they'll be the first customer. Ask them to make a deposit that is enough to fund development of the first version--enough to pay your living expenses for however long it would take you to get a workable prototype. ...
3
Look at it from the perspective of those media companies. It seems there is nothing about your app that would be difficult to reproduce. They could do it themselves or hire a freelancer. It is not critical to their business either, just a tiny nice-to-have add-on. They are only willing to pay for the convenience of having it right now. They do not want the ...
3
The traditional model is still viable, and if you look at the top earning software vendors they are all doing this, Microsoft, Oracle, IBM etc.
However, your decision should be based on your market, your software and abilities of your company.
For example, if you are developing a CRM solution, where many products and vendors are competing, you should go ...
2
It depends.
If you are selling off the shelf (not custom) software and you are both in NY, you definitely have to collect sales tax. It is determined by the county of the purchaser. You then also have to submit quarterly sales tax returns (if you fail to do this, you have to pay a $50 penalty each time).
Services, however, are not necessarily taxed. So ...
2
It is difficult to say anything definitive about structuring the business / legal relationship, because both parties' needs must be met.
That said, I see three steps that need to take place:
Negotiate detailed business terms with the other party.
Have the company prepare a written agreement that embodies the agreed-upon business terms.
Ask a qualified ...
2
This very much depends on your software, what it does, and how.
DRM for an entirely offline $5k app is probably a must. You will lose a percentage to piracy, and, well that's just a cost of doing business as there's no way to entirely stop it.
Of course if your app is in a highly niche area your app might not be popular with the pirates, but for the most ...
2
DRM like open-source, nonprofits and even criminal enterprises are part of the total economy regardless of our moral position on them. Security is a constant, unending cat-and-mouse gambit. It's like no one's going to leave their car unlocked because there are car thieves, quite the opposite.
The point of DRM isn't to make it impossible for an unlicensed ...
2
There are differences between selling and granting an exclusive license. The relevant law here is copyright. If you own the software, then you can license it, but you need to be clear here as to exactly what you are licensing.
Copyright does not involve a single right, but rather a bundle of rights. From Wikipedia, the rights include:
to produce copies ...
2
In my experience in building the technology for http://www.Staff.com you're going to find that as you start building the software your requirements will likely change. It is very difficult to know the exact specifications.
When you said "Since its complexity surpasses the capacities for a one man army or perhaps of a small software team, it will be ...
2
The problem is that there is currently nothing that prevents them from just installing the extension on as many computers as they want.
Is there a good way to set up at least a nominal barrier to keep most people from doing this? I understand it's not possible to stop a determined hacker, but just something to discourage the practice.
This sums up ...
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